New Age parody

Astral Sex – Zen Teabags, an illustrated New Age spoofapedia comes out in Europe in March and in US in June, so here to celebrate are a few of my favourite bits.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek dictionary of all things new-agey – designed to amuse, whether you love it or whether you hate it. Comments welcome……

Affirmations
Things which people repeat ad nauseam about what they would like to have happen in their lives, instead of actually doing something about it.

Archetype
Nobody actually knows what this word means, but it is now so widely used that no-one can afford to admit that. Other terms which no-one will admit to not know the meaning of but use a lot to pretend they do: paradigm, process,gestalt.

Assertiveness
Pretentious term for being rude

Beaverweaver
Male who poses as a shaman purely in order to pull women.

Bermuda triangle
That dangerous three-sided patch of non-tanned skin left after wearing a very skimpy bikini bottom.

Community
Any group of people whose karma is to live together in order to sort out their stuff, because there’s no way they’re going to get on with one another.

Conspiracy theory
Realisation that the people in power are constantly getting up to things they don’t want us to know about. Research has shown that conspiracy theorists share a common childhood experience – as children they were all convinced that their mothers were keeping the really special food hidden away from them. The most important deception so far is that on May 12th 2011, as predicted by a prominent US bible scholar, the world actually ended – but the major world governments have conspired together to cover this up.

Dream interpretationThe belief that the meanings of dreams can be deciphered and used to help understand life or predict future events. For instance:

Dreaming about a tall, dark stranger means that you are going to meet a tall dark stranger or a short fair familiar person, or possibly someone else;

In dreams, a gun represents the penis, whereas a penis represents a gun; a dream which includes both guns and penises means trouble;

Keeping a dream journal means you have nothing better to do with your time.

Extraterrestrial
A being from another galaxy who is waiting for the opportunity to take over planet Earth, presumably because they have run out of land on their own planet (extra = more; terra = land).

FamilyA group of people who have even more intense negative karma around each other than a community.

Feelings
Another word for emotions. Women have always had feelings, but men did not start having them until the 1970s.

Immortalists
A short-lived movement which was popular in California in the late \’70s. Probably died out because it was so, age-ist, death-ist. and politically incorrect. The classic text is \’How to live for Ever”, by the late Hector Stiffkey.

Intuitive
A word used by alternative practitioners to describe any professional practice in which they they are not qualified, have not studied, and have no experienced, as in “intuitive healing,” or “intuitive brain surgery.”

Lay lines
Patterns found on bedlinen after sexual activity.

Macroneurotics
An obscure food cult and eating disorder, which came to the West from Japan in the nineteen-fifties, and gained a considerable following among reformed drug dealers in the USA. Macroneurotics holds that food is the only important thing in the Universe. The three main foods, held to be able to create total health, happiness, success, fulfilment and enlightenment, are brown rice with miso soup, brown rice with seaweed, and brown rice on its own. Further reading: Eat,Pray, Fart by George O’Sawa

Mistake
There isn’t any such thing as a mistake in the world of mind-body-spirit – there are now only \’learning experiences’.

NLP
Not Learning Properly – a form of hypnotism designed to separate people from their money.

Relationship Addict
Person who cannot bear to not be in a relationship. They think they are terrific at relationships because, after all, they’ve had so many of them. Each new partner is ‘at last – the perfect one/ the soul-mate/ the one I’ve been looking for all my life’ but retrospectively becomes ‘impossible/ a living hell/it just was never meant to be’. They keep a string of people in mind at all times as possible future partners, in case the current relationship breaks down – which it inevitably does, due to lack of commitment to the present venture.

For the relationship addict, relationship is an opportunity not to deal with personal issues, but instead to carry them forward into an ever deepening pattern of unresolvement. Relationships, therefore, tend to become shorter and shorter. The pain of ending relationships, however, is diminished by lack of emotional investment and by plenty of practice. The addict regularly attends meetings of Co-dependents Anonymous, simply because they are terrific places to find new partners.

Sharing
A popular euphemism in body/mind/spirit circles for \’talking about oneself’. A whole distinct language has now evolved in sharing circles. Strictly correct forms of response in particular have become established, and it is vital to observe them in order to follow protocol. Examples are “I hear what you’re saying”, “I really like where you’re coming from”, and (when the listener really can’t take any more) “Thank you for sharing”.

Unhealed healer
The collective term for any type of therapist, counsellor, seer, mystic, or guru whose ability to help their clients is severely hampered because the practitioner has completely neglected to address his or her own personal unresolved life issues, or stuff. Tell-tale signs are anger, depression, bloated ego, capacity to suck out their clients’ vital energies, and very high fees. Differs from the “wounded healer” in that the latter is at least heroic.